Facts, Figures, And Other Resources For Legal Betting On The Biggest Night in Movies
Where and When to Watch the Oscars
92nd Annual Academy Awards ceremony: Sunday, Feb. 9, 2020
Start time: 5 p.m. PST/ 8 p.m. EST
Network: ABC
Streaming options: www.abc.com or via the ABC app. Viewers with certain cable providers can log into the ABC app using their cable login. From there, select “Watch Live TV”. More info on how to watch the Oscars is available on ABC’s website.
2020 Oscar nominees
Best Picture
1917 Ford v Ferrari The Irishman Jojo Rabbit Joker Little Women Marriage Story Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Parasite
Best Actor
Antonio Banderas (Pain and Glory)
Leonardo DiCaprio (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood)
Adam Driver (Marriage Story)
Joaquin Phoenix (Joker)
Jonathan Pryce (The Two Popes)
Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood)
Al Pacino (The Irishman)
Joe Pesci (The Irishman)
Tom Hanks (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood)
Anthony Hopkins (The Two Popes)
Actress in a Supporting Role
Kathy Bates (Richard Jewell)
Laura Dern (Marriage Story)
Scarlett Johansson (Jojo Rabbit)
Florence Pugh (Little Women)
Margot Robbie (Bombshell)
Best Director
Bong Joon Ho (Parasite)
Sam Mendes (1917)
Todd Phillips (Joker)
Martin Scorsese (The Irishman)
Quentin Tarantino (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood)
Legal U.S. Oscar betting for the second time
Plenty of people have tried to guess who will take home the Academy Award at an Oscars party or with friends. New Jersey –and now Indiana — take the movie awards to the next level.
In 2019, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement gave sportsbooks the all-clear to accept wagers on the Oscars. It was an unforged territory for regulated US sports betting, to great success. New Jersey was the only state that offered legal Oscar betting last year, but Indiana joined the party in 2020. Nevada has never booked action on the Oscars. Additionally, other states such as West Virginia and Pennsylvania don’t appear to have any Oscar betting plans.
How does Oscar betting work?
There is really only one type of bet sportsbooks will offer on the Oscars. Each nominee in a category has moneyline odds that they will take home the award.
The nominations for the 2020 Academy Awards were announced on Monday, Jan. 13 (scroll up to see the “Bix Six” category nominees). Scroll down the page for current odds on the 2020 Oscar nominees.
As an example of how Oscar betting works, let’s take a look at the 2019 nominees for Best Director. Here are the five nominees and sample odds for each one:
Alfonso Cuaron: -1,200
Spike Lee: +700
Adam McKay: +2,000
Pawl Pawkikoski: +2,000
Yorgos Lanthimos: +2,500
The favorite to win the award is Cuaron (-1,200), who directed the film Roma. If you bet $120 on Cuaron to win and he does, you would get your $120 back and profit $10. In other words, you would have to wager $120 to win $10 (or $12 to win $1, and so on).
Let’s say you bet $10 on McKay (+2,000) and he upsets though. Then you would win back your $10 bet and profit $200. In other words, you would win $200 for every $10 you wagered (or $20 for every $1, and so on).
Because there are countless awards show leading up to the actual Oscars, there is typically a clear frontrunner in every category. That means steep moneylines on the likely winners. These bets require you wager a lot to win a little. However, if you can accurately predict an upset, you can make a tidy profit.
Where can you bet on Oscars?
So far, New Jersey and Indiana are the only states willing to offer Oscar bets. We don’t know exactly how many sportsbooks will offer Oscar betting yet and on which categories. So far, DraftKings and FoxBet in New Jersey are the only ones confirmed and with posted odds. Indiana’s participating sportsbooks and odds are expected shortly.
The “Big Six” categories are:
Best Picture
Best Director
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actress
Oscars party games
An Oscars viewing party is a fun way to get your movie-loving friends together. While you’re at it, make it even more interactive with some Oscars party games.
Click here to download the 2020 Oscars betting sheet. Have your guests check off who they think will win and give out prizes for the three with the most correct picks.
Next up is Oscars Bingo. These four different bingo cards have squares featuring different events that will or could happen during the ceremony. Hand them out to your guests, watch for the squares to fill up, and out prizes to Bingo winners. Click here to download the full PDF for 2020 Oscar Bingo.
Nevada has only ever taken bets on sporting events, and events that actually take place on the field of play. Regulators have never allowed betting on something that is not a sport.
Let the experts do the work for you
If you don’t want to study up for the Oscars before betting, there are plenty of sites that offer predictions for the awards. The most notable is Gold Derby, which tracks the entire awards season and offers predictions from dozens of awards buffs and industry professionals.
Additionally, as Oscar day nears, Variety likes to talk with anonymous Academy members who share what they voted for and their motivations behind their choices. This insight can be very useful to get a beat on what the Academy voters are thinking.
Oscar betting odds
Here are the odds for the 2020 Oscars Big Six categories. We expect the odds at each book to vary wildly, so you might want to price shop before committing to a bet.
DraftKings is offering wagers on several more categories beyond the Big Six, and several other sportsbooks could too. Time will tell if sportsbooks like SugarHouse and BetAmerica plan to feature some categories that are not available anywhere else.
These categories contain some value spots if you are willing to put in the work. Using the guild awards and Gold Derby to suss out some possible upsets and you could bring in a nice payday.
70%
How often the Producers Guild of America winner go on to win Best Picture
76%
How often the Directors Guild of America winner goes on to win Best Picture.
93%
How often Best Picture was also nominated for Best Director. A movie without a Director nod has only taken home the Oscar on four occasions (1929, 1932, 1989, and 2013)
27
The number of times the movie that won Best Director did not win Best Picture. Nine of those instances have happened since 2000.
Oscar Betting Tips
Pay attention to the guild awards
The Golden Globes used to be a great indicator of who will win the Oscars, but in recent years, the two groups are increasingly not on the same page. Rather than monitor the Globe winners, follow which films and people win the various awards for their respective guilds.
When it comes to Oscar voting, members of the Academy only vote in categories they work in. The editors are the only ones who vote for Best Editing, for example. The only category everyone votes for is Best Picture. The best way to figure out which film editors prefer, you need look no further than the American Cinema Editors awards.
PGA and DGA are best Best Picture predictors
If there is one guild award you should pay attention to more than the rest, it is the Producer’s Guild of America (PGA) award. In the 29 years of existence, the PGA winner has gone on to win Best Picture 79 percent of the time. The Director’s Guild of America (DGA) is equally as successful as predicting Best Picture and even more accurate when it comes to predicting Best Director.
The Best Picture will likely be the least polarizing
When the Academy expanded the Best Picture category to up to 10 nominees in 2009, it also changed how the voting for the category worked. The new preferential ballot system tends to award movies everyone feels generally positive about.
In the past, polarizing movies like Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri and La La Land had too many people that strongly disliked them to win. The film most likely to be ranked in the top three of the most ballots is the one most likely to win.
Hollywood loves a good Hollywood story
If you haven’t noticed, Hollywood is a little bit in love with itself. Dating back to the start of the Academy Awards, movies about movies and the arts have always fared well.
Recent examples include The Artist, Argo, Birdman, and last year’s The Shape of Water. The 2019 Best Picture field included three entertainment industry stories, Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody, and A Star Is Born.
Films like Judy and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood could fare quite well this year.
Actors playing real people is a winning combination
Four of the last five Best Actor winners won for playing real people. This year, 12 of the 20 acting nominees are people depicting an actual person. While the actress awards don’t heed with this trend as much, the actor awards do tend to go to portrayals of real people. This year, the frontrunners in both Actor and Supporting Actor are roles based on real people.
Actors physically sacrificing for their craft gets rewarded too
In the case of 2019 nominee Rami Malek’s portrayal of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, he also has a physical transformation as well, which means even more bonus points in his favor. Academy voters also love actors putting on pounds, putting on latex, and putting themselves through the wringer for their craft.
